I never was much of a game console nut. My video game crazes mostly played out on the PC. But I did play the Atari in the 70s, the C64 in the 80s and the NES and SNES in the early 90s, when I wrote for Nintendo mags and borrowed the hardware from my employers. The SNES was the last console I paid any attention to.

11-y-o Junior loves all kinds of video games, particularly on-line multiplayer ones like Roblox and Runescape. But he’s also installed emulator software on the PC and played a lot of old games that originally ran on machines he’s never actually seen. He’s got a Wii which allows him to download and play old Nintendo games cheaply. In fact, he’s so into the old stuff that he subscribes to Retro Gamer magazine. This is a mag where you’ll find long interviews with the people behind Spyhunter and Arkanoid. So now we’ve made an agreement to sell his disused Nintendo DS and its cartridges and put some of the money into a certain really old game console. It arrived today. It’s a SNES made in 1994.

Junior can get all the games he likes for this machine for free over the net and play them on the PC with an emulator. But somehow he feels that running real cartridges on a real SNES makes for a better experience. So tonight it’s been Super Mario World for him.

Do you remember Intellivision? My dad thought ATARI was too much fun, that we’d never go outside. So he compromised and bought Intellivison. Nobody ever wanted to play baseball with me, so I had to play both teams at the same time, which added fun to an otherwise slow game. I could’ve played against the machine, but I always lost and there’s no fun if you KNOW you’re going to lose all three innings before you even go up to bat. Hey, I was really young, and it was a little demoralizing. But I did like the card games – got really good at black jack. It’s a wonder I didn’t end up with a gambling addiciton…. Nintendo DS released NAMCO Museum, where you have PacMan, Galaga, Xevious, etc… Fun, but annoying to use the up-down side-to-side keys – joysticks are way better. Those games got me all stressed out too – they play so quickly and I’m a slow, smell-the-roses kinda gal. I’m such an old lady! So, I’m playing logic puzzles and the likes instead. Trying to keep the cranial muscle in shape, while the rest of me falls apart… 😉

Oh yes, I forgot about the Intellivision. My friend Göran had it, must have been around 1981, 82 maybe? We played the aquarium game and Treasure of Tarmin and tennis and, I believe, Burgertime. The controls had these plastic covers that slid into place to tell you what the buttons would do for each game, and they quickly wore out.